You get $5,000! You get $5,000! Everybody gets $5,000!
Well, that's if Republicans win big in November — and if the checks make it past the promise stage.
On Wednesday, President Donald Trump added to the growing pile of free-cash promises to Americans. He told the Republican Party's midterm convention in Dallas that every US citizen would receive a $5,000 "Trump dividend" if Republicans retain control in both chambers of Congress in the midterms.
The dividend, he said, would have to be spent in the US and would be "very much like a successful company will do a cash distribution to its shareholders."
Previous proposals were supposed to be funded by savings generated by the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency and revenue from Trump's tariffs. So far, neither has resulted in payments.
Trump has, however, made good on some cash giveaways, including giving 1.5 million service members $1,776 bonus checks before Christmas, payments he called "warrior dividends." In July, Trump Accounts were launched, which the federal government kickstarts with a $1,000 contribution for eligible newborns.
DOGE dividends and tariff refunds
On X, people joked that they were adding the $5,000 pledged on Wednesday to the $7,000 already in their tab of promised free money.
At the start of his second term, Trump fundraised off mentions of potential "DOGE dividends." These would have given Americans a one-time check of up to $5,000, funded by DOGE savings. In reality, Musk's original estimate of $2 trillion in savings never materialized, and neither did the $5,000 checks.
Then, in November 2025, Trump said on Truth Social that he wanted to send $2,000 tariff-rebate checks to "everyone" except "high-income people." The Supreme Court later ruled that Trump lacked the authority to impose many of his sweeping tariffs, while the rebate also went nowhere.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated in November last year that, even without the Supreme Court ruling, there would not have been enough tariff revenue to fund payments at the scale Trump envisioned. Many congressional Republicans also balked at the idea.
Early this year, Trump gave mixed messages about the tariff rebate in an interview with The New York Times, committing only to providing it "sometime."
The latest proposal, if it goes ahead, would come with a hefty price tag.
Kent Smetters, a professor of business economics and public policy at the Wharton School and faculty director of the Penn Wharton Budget Model, told Business Insider on Wednesday that giving every US adult $5,000 would cost about $1.35 trillion.
Few details were given about how the "Trump dividend" would work or be funded, and it remains unclear whether Republicans in Congress would back it.
Vice President JD Vance, who spoke after Trump at the convention, already appeared to narrow the proposal, saying the payment would not go to wealthy people.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
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Joshua Nelken-Zitser is an award-winning correspondent at Business Insider’s London bureau covering the affordability of modern life.Through features, investigations, on-the-ground reporting, and As Told To essays, he explores the changing cost of major life milestones, what people choose to spend on when they can’t afford everything they want, and how they adapt as traditional markers of success become less attainable.Joshua previously spent five years on the news desk, reporting from the US, across Europe, and the Middle East. In 2025, he moved to the business desk to cover wealth, spending, and consumer culture.In 2024, he received the Axel Springer Award for Change — Journalistic Piece of the Year and was highly commended at the British Journalism Awards for an investigation into state-subsidized gender-transition surgeries in Iran.His debut book (TRAUMA BONDS: How Generational Trauma Shapes, Divides and Connects Us) will be published by HarperCollins in January 2027.Got a tip? Email [email protected]. You can also follow him on X or Instagram.
